CLEVELAND, Ohio -- You approach any show on the CW knowing that teenagers and young women are the so-called fifth network's primary target audience. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

In fact, things sometimes go wonderfully right on the fright front. Aiming at this demographic, the CW continues to scare up viewers with a couple of durable and smartly produced horror shows that don't get near enough creepy credit: "The Vampire Diaries" and "Supernatural."

REVIEW

The 100

What: A futuristic drama about 100 juvenile prisoners sent to an Earth decimated by nuclear war.

When: 9 p.m. Wednesday, March 19.

Where: The CW (WBNX Channel 55)

But when the CW ventures into the science-fiction realm, as it did recently with the less-than-stellar "Star-Crossed," the results tend to be, well, sophomoric at best. This is where badly constructed vehicles crash on the launch pad in a smoldering heap of cliches and dopey dialogue.

We see this again in "The 100," which premieres at 9 p.m. Wednesday, March 19, on WBNX Channel 55. It's another faulty futuristic fantasy drama patched together with used parts and overused designs.

CW programmers should stick with the fright stuff, because the sci-fi efforts are just frightfully bad. The only reasons to make "The 100" part of your future is to roast it in a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" sense or indulge in a rousing game of spot the influences.

Here's a start for you: Imagine a cross between "The Hunger Games" and "Survivor," with a little "Lord of the Flies" and "Beverly Hills 90210" tossed into the hackneyed mix. You're starting to get uncomfortably close to "The 100."

The wearisome series is based on a book series by Kass Morgan, and the CW committed to this show before the first novel was published. It's set 97 years after a nuclear Armageddon has made the Earth uninhabitable for humans. The only survivors were 400 inhabitants of 12 international space stations dubbed the Ark.

Three generations later, the linked stations are overcrowded and running low on resources (and original story ideas, it appears). The Ark population of 400 has grown to 4,000.

How do you make room? One answer is to send 100 juvenile prisoners on a mission to see if the Earth can again sustain life. They are sent with no preparation or training. Hey, it's only the future of the human race. Might as well send the kids.

Maybe they are just making room. Once you meet these strutting stereotypes, you begin to see the sense in this thinking.

The teens hit the planet surface and immediately fall into the classroom patterns of students whose teacher has left the room longer than expected. They squabble. They break into peer groups. They swim in the familiar waters of teen angst and rebellion, hurling trite lines at each other when, gee, maybe they should be giving some thought to food and shelter.

Only young Clarke (Eliza Taylor) voices any sense of urgency or mission. Most everyone else wants to party. The viewers who should be most insulted by all this are teens.

They should be insulted that this is what these producers think of them. And they should be insulted that the CW thinks they'd happily swallow this sci-fi swill.

You have the obligatory charming daredevil, Finn (Thomas McDowell). You have the obligatory get-out-of-my-face mean girl, Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos). You have a headache if you stick around too long.

Meanwhile, back on the Ark, Clarke's widowed mother, Abby (Paige Turco), is facing a death sentence. The chief medical officer, Abby has run afoul of the tightly controlled society's ruthless second in command, Kane (Henry Ian Cusick).

The Ark's leader, Chancellor Jaha (Isaiah Washington, the actor famously fired from "Grey's Anatomy"), has been incapacitated, and it looks as if Kane is seizing control.

The first part of "The 100" plays like something that should be called "Deep Space Whine." The second half turns into "Armageddon: The High School Years."

When a mutant snake-like creature threatens the cartoon-like teens on Earth, you're hoping it has worked up a good appetite. This isn't anybody's idea of Eden, folks, and you're siding with the snake.

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